A Catalogue of Failure
by Silvestria
Summary: Five friendships that failed and one that is only just beginning. Mary-centric character study. Shippy if you squint.


_A/N: Inspired by a brief chat with Silverduck, OrangeShipper and AriadneO last night. Not my usual style, but hope you enjoy! If you want a longer, more plotty character study of Mary (and Matthew and Sybil), then do check out my current WIP, 'Consolation Prize'. Why yes, I am self-publicizing like mad. Am I embarrassed? Not in the slightest. Reviews are as always the cherry on top! :)_

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><p><em>Patrick<em> used to be her friend. When she had been a child and he had spent so many of his school holidays at Downton they had done the sort of things friends did: hide and seek in the stables, putting frogs in the governess' bed, sneaking into Carson's office when they should have been asleep (Carson never punished them)- silly things really. Edith had joined them for in those days they had all been friends. This was before Patrick realised that one day he was going to marry his cousin Lady Mary. After that he became more wary of her and the games ended.

It was later still that Mary understood her power over him and other men. In this respect Patrick taught her a valuable lesson. She started new games for them then but it was too late; while she had been growing up she had lost his friendship to Edith.

Then he died and he wasn't a friend to either of them.

_Sisters _and friends were different species altogether. After the early years, Edith had never really been either, but Mary sometimes wished Sybil could have been. She was too young to be a confidante however and Mary was too old not to watch her with indulgence, pride and a little anxiety as she grew into a much nicer, stronger person than she knew she was herself. She had never been jealous of Sybil before but now she was starting to think she could be.

_When_ Mary first went to London for the season she had expected to make plenty of friends in society. In fact, she was surrounded by too many men to allow the women much of a chance. The Honourable Miss Vivian Beresford had made an effort though. A heavy, inelegant debutante, she had looked uncomfortable in her white satin and pearls. She had latched on to Mary's arm and opened the conversation with, "I hear you hunt, Lady Mary."

Mary replied that she did, on occasion, and thought it might be nice to talk to someone with whom she had something in common. Her openness was rewarded with a half hour monologue on Vivian's many horses, the difference in ground conditions in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire and other minutiae of hunting life. Mary's eyes wandered the ballroom and she thought that what would be really nice would be to have someone whose eyes she could meet across a room and know that they knew exactly what she was thinking.

Instead she met the eyes of Sir Giles Frodsham. He was a fool but he was in love with her. Mary flashed him her most brilliant smile and dumped the boring Beresford as quickly as possible.

Later she discovered that Vivian had a cousin. Being only the niece of a Viscount instead of his daughter, after an education at Cheltenham Ladies' College, Grace Beresford, supposedly a renowned wit and quite beautiful too, had been allowed to go on and study English at Cambridge. Of course, she did not have a London season so Mary never met her.

_Women_ who met Mary invariably fell into two categories. Either they hated her because she was handsomer, richer and cleverer than they were or they wanted to be her friend for the same reasons. Lavinia Swire, the downtrodden, orphaned niece and heiress of a local landowner was introduced to Mary because "she liked reading and discussing books".

At first Mary enjoyed dominating the shy and adoring Lavinia with her opinions and wit but it grew tedious very quickly. Lavinia agreed with everything she said and Mary was soon forced to find her entertainment in inventing more and more ludicrous interpretations of literature to see at what point she would crack. She never did. _Jane Eyre_ based on a lost Austen gothic novel discovered by Charlotte Bronte in a peat bog in Yorkshire? A plausible theory. Oscar Wilde actually a woman called Cecily Cardew? Accepted as gospel truth. Harriet Smith a noxious influence on Emma Woodhouse? Lavinia agreed completely with this more sensible theory but still did not get the hint.

There was nothing more tiresome than someone who never argued. Spoiling for a fight, Mary bullied Edith instead, but she would rather have had a friend.

_Death_ is notorious as a force for bringing people together. Kemal Pamuk's death brought Mary and Anna closer than they ever would have been otherwise. Sometimes when they meet in a corridor they share a smile or a nod of acknowledgement. When Anna combs Mary's hair, she imagines she is more gentle than with Edith or Sybil. She seems to genuinely care for her. Mary appreciates this more than she would ever say.

However, they're not friends, of course. Anna is a servant and while Mary likes to think she's quite progressive, she's not _that_ progressive.

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><p>It is only a throw-away sentence in her book that has made Mary think about these things, as she sits outside on this overcast but warm spring day. Her life is nothing more than a catalogue of failed friendships and dwelling morbidly on them suits her better than simply carrying on with the chapter.<p>

Yet it is spring and that brings hope even to the hopeless. Mary sometimes thinks about the future and recently it has seemed brighter than before.

The crunch on the gravel is a welcome distraction and she gives up pretending to read when she sees it's cousin Matthew. She is not quite sure if he is a friend or not, but she does like him.

"Hello!"

He doffs his hat and smiles too brightly at her. She feels a strange flutter at this and wonders if he came to see her.

"What are you doing here?"

It turns out he had not come to see her, but when she invites him to sit down he does not refuse.

He even wants to see more of her. It is not a declaration of love, but it is still one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to her.


End file.
